Three thoughts on No. 23 San Diego State’s 81-75 win against Cal Baptist on Wednesday night at Viejas Arena:

1. Broken glass

The statistics said Cal Baptist had a 31-23 edge in rebounding, and 17-7 on the offensive boards.

Not good, but not nearly as bad as a deeper dive into the numbers suggests.

“Our rebounding,” coach Brian Dutcher said, “betrayed us.”

The first half was relatively even – 12 rebounds for the Aztecs and 11 for the Lancers, both with three on the offensive end.

Then the second half started. The Lancers missed 23 shots over the final 20 minutes … and rebounded 14 of them. Over a 6½-minute stretch when a 19-point deficit dwindled to four, they grabbed six offensive boards and converted every … single … one of them into a subsequent basket — a total of 15 points, or an absolutely preposterous 2.5 points per possession (the national average is just over 1.0).

The Lancers scored 42 points in the second half. Nineteen came off their 14 offensive boards.

“I think it’s a maturity thing,” said 6-foot-7 Miles Byrd, who had 19 points but only one rebound. “They literally had on the whiteboard before the game that they had three guys who would lead our team in offensive rebounding. We knew they would be a good offensive rebounding team. In the second half, they had a good stretch where they got too many in a row, which we have to limit.

“I think at the end of the day it’s concentration and focusing and boxing out your man.”

The problem with offensive boards is not just that you give up another shot but that it’s typically a really good shot because your defense is scrambling and not set. To wit: CBU shot 32.1% against SDSU’s initial defense … and 66.7% (8 of 12) following offensive rebounds.

It wasn’t just Wednesday night, either. Gonzaga and Oregon had their way with the Aztecs on the glass in double-digit wins. Three other opponents finished with more offensive rebounds. Division II Occidental wasn’t one of them but still grabbed 14.

The Kenpom metric tracks defensive rebounding efficiency by the percentage of offensive boards you allow. For the Aztecs, that number has climbed to 32.8%, which ranks 284th nationally – their worst in two decades.

The good news: Dutcher now has nine days to fix it before the Aztecs’ next game, Dec. 21 against Cal in San Jose.

“We work on rebounding every day,” Dutcher said, “but we have to have better buy-in or have better rebounders on the floor, one of the two. We have to find a way to turn really good defense into possessions for us. We’ve known that was an issue. It’s just young bigs. We’ve got young bigs who have to get better every day, and then the guards have to help clean up some of that.

“You play a team like Houston, and that’s what they do at an elite level, and we held our own. … (Cal Baptist) is a good rebounding team, but you wouldn’t think they were any better than Houston on the glass. Some nights you just scratch your head and wonder why the ball doesn’t fall in your hands.”

2. Groundhog Day

There is the to-do list of issues to correct on the floor: rebounding, reducing the free-throw disparity with their opponents, getting BJ Davis untracked, keeping Pharaoh Compton out of foul trouble, increasing Magoon Gwath’s defensive awareness.

But the break’s other big development will come at a medical office, where senior guard Reese Waters is scheduled to get a bone scan on his right foot.

Waters has been sidelined since mid-October, when the team’s training staff shut him down after discomfort on the top of his foot. A CT scan the following week found a stress fracture in the navicular bone, and he was fitted with a protective boot and scooter.

A scan late last month determined that the bone is healing but not healed. Back into the boot he went, the medical equivalent of a groundhog seeing its shadow for a continuation of winter.

One of two things will happen next week: Waters will either be cleared to begin weight-bearing rehabilitation, or he won’t and the speculation will grow about whether he’ll indeed return this season.

“We’ll just see how the healing is going,” Dutcher said Wednesday night. “Obviously, we’re not going to risk Reese further damaging that foot, so we’re going to make sure he’s healthy before we talk about bringing him back.”

Even if Waters is cleared, it likely will be another three or four weeks to rebuild strength in the leg to where he’s game ready. A three-week rehab would put him back in uniform for Jan. 8 against Air Force or Jan. 11 at New Mexico. Four weeks wouldn’t have him back until Jan. 14 against Colorado State.

Then there’s the question of integrating the top returning scorer into what on most nights has been a nine-man rotation and Wednesday night was 10.

“He’s our only all-conference player in the preseason,” Dutcher said. “We’re playing pretty good without him, but we’d be better with him. Reese is a gifted player. I don’t really think about it until it presents itself. … How long does it take him to get into shape and get a game rhythm back? We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

“But right now I’m glad we’re not talking about, boy, if they just had Reese, they’d be winning these games. Just think how much better we’ll be when we get Reese.”

3. Real and authentic

Three days after playing USD at Viejas Arena, Aztecs assistant coaches and several staff members were at Jenny Craig Pavilion to see the Toreros.

They sat behind the visitor’s bench, to see — and support — Long Beach State coach Chris Acker, who spent the previous five years working alongside them at SDSU.

Acker’s director of basketball operations is Ali Tavakol, a SDSU student manager and graduate assistant during Acker’s tenure.

Barely a month into the season, Acker has already lost his voice. He’s trying not to lose his mind.

He went from the national championship game and Sweet 16 to a 1-8 start at Long Beach State, and the “1” was against a Division III La Verne. They slipped to 339 in Kenpom and 355 (out of 364) in the NCAA’s NET metric.

Acker remained calm. His first head coaching job was at West Los Angeles College, where he started 0-12 … and finished the season 9-21.

“I just tapped into that experience,” Acker said, “understanding that, hey, it’s going to be a process.”

He credited Long Beach State Athletic Director Bobby Smitheran, an associate AD at SDSU when Acker was there, with being “unbelievable through that process” and knowing “exactly what we were as a program and what we were trying to do.”

He also got a call from former SDSU coach Steve Fisher.

“Just unsolicited, giving me advice,” Acker said. “Things about staying the course, tough loss, you’ve got to remind the guys they have to continue to get better and make plays, don’t stress too much about it, you’re a good coach.”

Fisher, of course, was right. The Beach opened the Big West schedule with wins against Cal State Fullerton and Hawaii, then made it three straight with a 76-70 victory at USD on Tuesday night as former colleagues and their families cheered behind his bench.

“Obviously, it’s always hard to leave family and branch out on your own and do your own thing,” Acker said, “but that’s the beautiful thing about San Diego State. They were with me through the whole process. I felt great about that. That’s what it’s about: It’s about doing something someplace, having success and then moving on and having their support.

“It just shows what we were about and everything we did at San Diego State was real and authentic.”